SYNOPSIS: Does God still punish a community of faith when there is sin in the camp like he did when the whole nation of Israel suffered for the sin of one man, Achan? Of course, Israel was unique in that it was a theocracy, and we don’t live under that system today in our pluralistic democracy. So what was applied to Israel may not be exactly applied in our nation—although I suspect there is still a divine principle at play. Yet each of us does live in theocratic community if we belong to a family or a church. And in that sense, we need to give careful thought as to how our individual behavior might affect those who share life with us in the community. Here’s the deal: My private actions affect my public relationships.
The Journey// Focus: Joshua 7:11-13
The Lord replied to Joshua, “Israel has sinned and broken my covenant! They have stolen some of the things that I commanded must be set apart for me. And they have not only stolen them but have lied about it and hidden the things among their own belongings. That is why the Israelites are running from their enemies in defeat. For now Israel itself has been set apart for destruction. I will not remain with you any longer unless you destroy the things among you that were set apart for destruction. Get up! Command the people to purify themselves in preparation for tomorrow. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Hidden among you, O Israel, are things set apart for the Lord. You will never defeat your enemies until you remove these things from among you.
Israel had just experienced the extreme thrill of defeating the great walled city of Jericho. It was an impenetrable fortress by ancient standards, but it collapsed like a house of cards before the Lord’s people. Then, just days later in the next battle, Israel was unexpectedly stunned at the fierce resistance of the small band of fighters at a little village called Ai. In a matter of hours, God’s people went from the sublime to the ridiculous. Ai was a relatively small and defenseless city of no account, yet its defenders fought for their very existence against the superior Israelite army—and Ai punched Israel in the mouth. Thirty-six of Israel’s fighting men were immediately killed in battle, and the rout was on. Israel was stunned, humiliated and disheartened.
All because of the sin of one man—Achan!
No matter how many times we moderns read the ancient story of the Israelites, we run across stories like this, Achan’s sin, and are left shaking our heads in wonderment—and not in the positive sense of wonderment. This is not a warm, fuzzy and inspiring story. And there are many like it with which we must contend as we journey through the Old Testament.
When we read these stories—and admittedly, we don’t have the backstory in every case—we are struck with a bad case of the fear of the Lord. There is no denying the anxiety we feel over his fierce holiness along with his swift and sweeping judgment against human violation of that holiness, for if this happened because of one sin, we don’t stand a chance before God for our many sins.
Furthermore, the story in Joshua 7 is not just a one off; there have been plenty. To name a few, we have witnessed the death of Nadab and Abihu for offering unholy fire on the altar (Leviticus 10), the execution of a blasphemer who cursed God’s name during a fight (Leviticus 24:10-23), the gruesome killing of a man who brought a Moabite woman into his tent to have sex with her—in broad daylight (Numbers 25), and now the stoning of a young man named Achan, along with his entire family, because he kept some of the expensive plunder from the battle of Jericho for himself.
Not that we would condone any of these sins—nobody who truly follows the Lord would justify any of these deliberate violations of God’s commands. Even still, the immediacy and severity of the punishment is hard to swallow for people like us who live at a time where consequences for actions seem to be decreasingly certain. So we read stories like this, and if we do anything with them at all, we simply toss them into the “Painful Lessons” file.
One of those painful lessons here is the corporate-ness of sin. In our culture, we worship individualism. In fact, the early heroes who built our nation are praised for their rugged individualism. We are proud of that and happen to believe that it is the superior way to live. While we nod our heads in agreement that whole community is important, we tend to see the parts as more important than the whole; the many are servant to the one. What child at school hasn’t whined that the whole class was punished for the actions of one student? To our western mindset, that is the height of unfairness.
Yet while we embrace the idea of unity, and the blessings that derive from it, why would we not accept the opposite? Why should we be surprised when the whole community suffers because an individual violates its values? If God favors corporate unity (Psalm 133:1-3), why would he not lift his favor from the community when sin invades it through an individual member? It cuts both ways—the whole is blessed when the parts are right; the whole is cursed when the parts are wrong.
I suspect you are still not convinced. I don’t like it either. But we have been so steeped in a cultural mindset of individualism that we simply cannot, or will not embrace God’s response to community when life in the community goes sideways. Of course, Israel was unique in that it was a theocracy, and we don’t live under that system today in our pluralistic democracy. So what was applied to Israel may not be applied to the same degree in our nation—although I suspect there is still a divine principle at play.
Yet each of us does live in theocratic community if we belong to a family or small group or ministry team or church. And in that sense, we need to give careful thought as to how our individual behavior might affect those who share life with us in the community. And while we don’t suffer the same degree of punishment that Achan and his family suffered, we can—and should—learn the painful lesson of Achan: My private actions affect my public relationships.
I love painful lessons, said no one ever—but thank God for them.
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